It is well established in the academic literature that when Franz Liszt coined his first Symphonic Poem in 1854, a substantial portion of his future orchestral works in this genre already existed and had been premiered as overtures. More than a mere change in nomenclature for market-oriented purposes, these works underwent revision prior to their redesignation. This was the case of the piece later known as Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo, first performed in 1849 as the overture to Torquato Tasso, the play by Goethe.

Building on a previous investigation (Oliveira, forthcoming 2026) that explored Liszt's transformation of a piano piece in continuous variation form into an orchestral overture in sonata form for its 1849 premiere, as well as the ways in which these revisions engaged with formal tendencies identified by Moortele (2017) in early nineteenth-century overtures, this paper proposes a comparative analysis of the successive versions of the work, from its initial performance as an overture to its presentation as a Symphonic Poem at the Weimar Court Concert in 1854 (Cormac, 2017, p. 70).

This study constitutes the beginning of a broader investigation into questions of form across Liszt's cycle of Symphonic Poems. It combines genetic analysis of selected works with the composer's own aesthetic reflections published in his essays, with the aim of reconstructing a historically plausible network of “horizons of expectations” (Hepokoski & Darcy, 2006) surrounding the emergence of this new genre.

The research is based on four documents preserved in the digital collections of the Goethe und Schiller Archiv (GSA) in Weimar and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Hs) in Nuremberg: the second Conradi copy used for the 1849 premiere (Hs 107016); the first Raff copy derived from Liszt's annotations on the 1849 premiere score (GSA 60/A2b); the version incorporating Liszt's corrections, in which the Quasi menuetto appears for the first time (GSA 60/2c); and the second Raff copy used for the first performance of the work as a Symphonic Poem (GSA 60/2a).

In order to clarify the probable datings and contexts of these manuscripts, the study draws on the musicological research of Mueller (1986) and Cormac (2012). Musical analyses focus on the formal implications of Liszt's revisions through the lens of New Formenlehre, employing theories of formal functions (Caplin, 1998), Sonata Theory, and the concept of dialogic form (Hepokoski & Darcy, 2006). Particular attention is given to how the Quasi menuetto section alters the proportions and formal functions of the sonata form employed in the 1849 overture.

Ultimately, this paper seeks to contribute to filling a gap identified by Cormac (2017, pp. 91–92): a more thorough discussion of the relationship and distinctions between the two principal nineteenth-century orchestral genres, the overture and the symphonic poem.